There are two types of people in this world: those who accept things as they are, and those who lie awake at 2am wondering who first decided a rabbit should deliver eggs.
Origin stories exist for that second group, the curious, the sceptical, and the mildly sleep-deprived.
They’re our way of saying, “Look, this is weird, but here’s a story to make it feel intentional.”
Take Wolverine, a bloke with knives in his hands and anger issues you could set your watch to.
His origin story?
A revolving door of trauma, secret experiments, and memory loss.
Every time you think you’ve got a handle on it, someone rewrites it.
At this point, Wolverine doesn’t have an origin story so much as a subscription service. But that’s the charm. He’s the human embodiment of “it’s complicated.”
Meanwhile, over in the North Pole marketing department, we’ve got Santa Claus.
He started as Saint Nicholas, a generous fellow who quietly helped people out.
Fast forward a few centuries and he’s a globally recognised brand with a fleet of flying reindeer, an elf workforce, and a surveillance system that makes Big Brother look underqualified.
Naughty or nice? Mate, he’s been tracking you since July.
Then there’s the Easter Bunny – which feels like a story someone lost control of halfway through. “Right, we need a symbol of new life.”
“Good – eggs?”
“Perfect.”
“And who delivers them?”
“…a rabbit.”
“Why?”
“Don’t overthink it.”
And somehow, against all odds, it stuck.
Generations of children have accepted this without question, which honestly says more about children than it does about rabbits.
Now, if you want peak childhood confusion, look no further than the Tooth Fairy.
The deal is simple, you lose a body part, place it under your pillow, and a tiny winged stranger breaks into your house and leaves you cash.
No one calls the police.
No one asks follow-up questions.
It’s the only burglary in history where everyone wakes up and goes, “Nice.”
And in parts of Europe, they thought, “You know what this needs? Less fairy, more rodent.”
Enter the Tooth Mouse.
Same concept, different branding.
Instead of a magical sprite, it’s a mouse sneaking in at night to collect your teeth.
Which, if anything, raises more questions.
Chief among them, what is this mouse building?
What’s brilliant about all these origin stories is that they don’t really explain anything, they just make the weirdness feel official.
Wolverine’s chaos becomes identity.
Santa’s generosity becomes magic.
A rabbit with eggs becomes tradition.
Losing teeth becomes a financial opportunity.
They’re not logical, they’re not consistent … they’re sticky.
They survive because they turn life’s odd, uncomfortable, or downright baffling moments into something with a punchline.
And maybe that’s the real origin story behind origin stories. Humans looked at the world, shrugged, and said, “This makes no sense… let’s make it funny.”
